Hard Times Of Old Lochac

My Beloved, who knows what entertains me, pointed to a truly inane thread, 288 comments, on the SCA Discussion Group on Facebook. A recent returnee to the fair but overheated lands of Iggilnard was complaining that she has to pay the insurance fee for everything she attends, along with her two kids. This being an international Facebook group, it took a bit of time to filter through to the non-Lochacians that this is indeed a consequence of the way our insurance works, but that membership is cheap and the fee doesn’t apply to members (it’s in essence a day membership), which means that she could pay a year’s membership for the cost of two events, since she has to pay for her kids as well as non-members but their membership as dependent minors is free.

So she proceeded to explain that she shouldn’t have to pay online because hackers might get her, and the people at Innilgard events should be taking her money and processing her membership in the Australian SCA, and that paying insurance is stupid anyway, and that Lochac is stupid and everyone is out to get her.

And, incidentally, that the SCA is so much more hostile and unfriendly than it used to be, for some reason. Almost as if she were being ostracised for being a whingeing futtock with the brains of a lentil.

I wrote this. It’s roughly to the tune of Hard Times Of Old England.

October 2014

Come all folk of Lochac that wayfaring wend
O heed my lamenting at all I must spend
The cost of my travel, plus beds at each end
And the fees we must pay for insurance
For insurance, those very bad fees!

It’s free for a member, I’ve heard that it explained
But who’ll give me papers I’ve not ascertained!
I’ve done all I can, that’s to say: I’ve complained
At the fees we must pay for insurance
For insurance, those very bad fees!

I pay many times what it costs for a card
But paying just once is unbearably hard
Once any assistance I do disregard,
For the fees we must pay for insurance
For insurance, those very bad fees!

So I go to the doorman and offer to pay
I can’t take your fees, gentle Lady, he’ll say
But here’s the address, let me show you the way
Round the fees we must pay for insurance
For insurance, those very bad fees!

No I won’t pay this money, it hurts my poor head
Why can’t you accept that I’ve already said
I can’t be a member, I must pay instead
All the fees we must pay for insurance
For insurance, those very bad fees!

Let me give you, dear Lady, the papers you need
It’s cheaper for members, I know you’ve agreed
But no! says the lady, I simply won’t read
About fees we must pay for insurance
For insurance, those very bad fees!

So Lady, the doorman explained with a sigh
I’ve shown you solutions, you laid each one by
If anyone’s a problem, it’s clearly not I
Or these fees we must pay for insurance
For insurance, those very bad fees!

So still, I am paying that dastardly fee
I can’t be a member, and get in for free
And everyone’s hostile to poor little me
With those fees we must pay for insurance
For insurance, those very bad fees!